'Heart attacks down since smoking ban's introduction'

More than half of hospital trusts in England are treating fewer heart attacks since the ban came on July 1 last year. Nearly six in ten NHS trusts are reporting a fall in the number of heart attack patients being admitted to emergency wards. There were 1,384 fewer heart attacks across the county in the nine months after the legislation was introduced compared with the same period a year earlier. That translates to a three per cent fall across the country since the ban. - Sunday Telegraph​

The Scottish government will this week launch its biggest assault on binge drinking, banning the sale of cheap alcohol by supermarkets and off-licences and raising the buying age to 21. New legislation will seek to impose a minimum price at which alcohol can be sold — expected to be around 40p per unit — and there will be a ban on cheap drinks promotions such as buy one get one free offers. - Sunday Times​

Scotland's move to ban under-21s from buying alcohol in supermarkets is could confuse the message for young people, who will still be allowed to drink in pubs at 18. It is also a blunt tool: why should a 20-year-old, who is old enough to vote, have sex and get married, be stopped from buying - and enjoying - a bottle of wine with a meal? Meanwhile - and here pubs and off-licences will disagree - but the "polluter pays" idea is a good one. If licensees have to contribute towards the cost of policing the streets on a Friday and Saturday night then they might get better at refusing to serve people who are already intoxicated - as they are already legally required to do. - Scotland On Sunday​

Chairman and founder Tim Martin topped up his stake in the JD Wetherspoon pub group last week with more than £700,000 worth of shares. He took 300,000 shares at 239.6p a time and now holds about 33.5m shares, or just less than 24 per cent in the company. His latest big buy comes after recent sharp falls in the share price. On January 7 he paid nearly £1m for 297,127 shares at 333.9p each. - Sunday Times​

The number of Scottish hospital beds being taken up by patients with booze-related illnesses has hit an all-time high. Drinkers notched up more than 250,000 days in Scotland's wards last year - costing the NHS over £100million in occupancy alone. Figures show that 261,000 days were spent in hospital by patients with alcohol-linked conditions in 2006/07 - up 8000 on the previous year. - Glasgow Sunday Mail​